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Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church
About The Westboro Baptist Church
UPDATED: April 18, 2008
The virulently homophobic Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), based in Topeka, Kansas, has gained notoriety by picketing the funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to protest what the group sees as America’s acceptance of homosexuality. The group has used this and similar tactics at a variety of events nationwide.
The Westboro Baptist Church has long advertised its plans to protest the Pope’s visit to the United States in April 2008, by picketing in Washington, D.C. and New York, N.Y. On one of the group’s Websites, the Pope is described as “this antichrist” and the head of “the world’s largest pedophile machine.”
 In addition, the WBC has continued to protest at the funerals of American soldiers, and is now also focusing its attention on young victims of untimely deaths. On April 13, 2008, the group posted a message on one its Websites lauding a father’s murder of his three young children, who ranged in age from 2 to 6, in a Baltimore hotel. This followed the group’s picketing of the funeral of five members of a Baltimore, Maryland-area family who were killed in an Ohio car accident. Among the deceased were children aged 10, 7, and 8 weeks. In both cases, the WBC praised the deaths as God’s punishment of the city of Baltimore for a recent legal judgment against the church that had occurred there.
A publicity-hungry group
The primary goal of the 71-member WBC, led by Fred Phelps, is to garner publicity for itself and its message. There is perhaps no better illustration of this than the group’s announcement in January 2008 that it would picket the funeral of actor Heath Ledger for his alleged support of homosexuality. (Ledger gained recognition for playing a gay character in a film.) The group also produces music videos (at least one features an extremely young child singing “God hates the world”) and maintains Websites with names like GodHatesAmerica and GodHatesFags, designed to inflame the passions of viewers and generate further publicity. After Shirley Phelps-Roper, a leader of the WBC, screened a documentary about the group in her home prior to the movie’s debut on Showtime in December, 2007, she said, “The content was good. Anytime we get the word out there that we are a doomed country - a doomed generation – it’s a good thing.” The WBC also maintains a “media room” on one of its Websites, with links to “broadcast quality resolution video files of our picketing ministry.” Indeed, every mention of the WBC in the media is considered a victory by the group.
Group’s protests inspire legislation
Since the group gained tremendous mainstream media attention for picketing soldiers’ funerals, a number of states and the federal government have passed laws trying to keep the group in check. In addition, on October 31, 2007, a major judgment was handed down against the group when a federal jury in Baltimore, Maryland, found it guilty of violating a family’s right to privacy and intentionally inflicting emotional distress against the family of Matthew Snyder, a Marine who was killed in Iraq in 2006.
The jury initially ordered WBC to pay nearly $11 million in damages, a sum members claimed is many times more than the WBC’s net assets. This was the first time the church had been held liable for its military funeral protests and the father of Matthew Snyder was the first individual to attempt such a lawsuit against the group. On February 4, 2008, a federal judge in Baltimore reduced the amount of the damages to $5 million, finding that “under both federal constitutional and state common law standards” the original punitive damages were excessive. The group has filed a notice of appeal in the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals on the original judgment. On April 3, 2008, a federal judge placed a lien on Fred Phelps’ property and ordered Shirley Phelps-Roper and another of his daughters, Rebekah A. Phelps-Davis, to put up cash bonds of $125,000 and $100,000 within 30 days, pending that appeal. In another ongoing case, Phelps-Roper was also charged in Nebraska in June 2007 with flag desecration for allowing her 10-year-old son to stand on an American flag while protesting at a soldier’s funeral and for wearing an American flag skirt that trailed on the ground. She is challenging the constitutionality of Nebraska’s flag desecration law.
WBC has been picketing soldiers’ funerals since 2005 and its followers have carried placards with sayings such as, "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "Thank God for IEDs [improvised explosive devices]" while members shout epithets at grieving parents. To date, the WBC’s protests have taken place in at least 22 states, inspiring a wave of grassroots anger. As a result, 38 states have introduced bills to limit protests near funerals, and at least 29 of those states have passed such measures. The constitutionality of these laws has been challenged in four states, with mixed results. In addition, on May 29, 2006, President Bush signed the “Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act,” which limits protests near certain military cemeteries. Phelps has repeatedly challenged the legislation, on both free speech and freedom of religion grounds, with some measure of success. For example, on December 7, 2007, the group won a “preliminary injunction” prohibiting the state of Missouri from enforcing its anti-funeral picketing law, but the United States Supreme Court on February 20, 2008, denied the WBC’s request that it review Snyder’s victory in his lawsuit against the group. In March 2007, a federal court in Ohio upheld, with slight revisions, that state’s anti-funeral picketing law. Reportedly, the only successful attempt to convince the group to cancel a protest came in October 2006 when a Pennsylvania radio station offered it free air-time in exchange for it not appearing at the funeral of murdered Amish schoolchildren.
A history of anti-gay hatred
Before gaining notoriety and provoking public anger for disrespecting slain soldiers and their families, the group was known for picketing the funerals of gay people or those they perceived to be gay. In 1998, WBC congregants set off an angry reaction when they showed up at the funeral of gay murder victim Matthew Shepard and held up signs saying "No Fags in Heaven" and "God Hates Fags." According to the WBC Website, they have staged "over 22,000" protests across the nation and around the world since 1991.
Incorporated in 1967 as a not-for-profit organization, the Westboro Baptist Church considers itself an "Old School (or, Primitive)" Baptist Church. Many WBC congregants are related to Phelps by blood. His wife, several of his children and dozens of his grandchildren frequent the church. WBC has no official affiliation with mainstream Baptist organizations.
While WBC has picketed the gay community at hundreds of events nationwide, most of the individuals the Church has protested against are not homosexual. In fact, WBC often targets people it mistakenly claims are gay or those it believes to be encouraging homosexuality. Many WBC fliers emphasize the race or religion of these individuals, suggesting that the Church's hate spreads beyond its abhorrence of homosexuality. WBC congregants believe that "God's hatred is one of His holy attributes." What appears to be anti-gay rhetoric is often a vehicle for WBC's anti-Semitism, hatred of other Christians, and even racism, though in the 1980s Fred Phelps received awards from the Greater Kansas City Chapter of Blacks in Government and the Bonner Springs branch of the NAACP for his work on behalf of black clients.
Fred Phelps disbarred
Trained as a lawyer, Fred Phelps was disbarred in 1979 by the Kansas Supreme Court, which asserted that he had "little regard for the ethics of his profession." The formal complaint against Phelps charged that he misrepresented the truth in a motion for a new trial in a case he had brought, and that he held the defendant in the case up to "unnecessary public ridicule for which there is no basis in fact." Following his disbarment from Kansas State courts, Phelps continued to practice law in Federal courts. In 1985, nine Federal court judges filed a disciplinary complaint charging him and six of his family members, all attorneys, with making false accusations against them. The Phelpses fought the complaint but lost. In 1989, Fred Phelps agreed to surrender his license to practice law in Federal court in exchange for the Federal judges allowing the other members of his family to continue practicing in Federal court.
The following quotations from WBC materials and other sources expose the Church's views on Jews, gays, Blacks, Christians and the United States. WBC's own words best demonstrate the wide range and disturbing nature of its hatred.
Next: WBC on Jews
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